[Sca-cooks] Pumpkin

[Terry Decker]

If you are working from Apicius, the pumpkin will actually be a bottle 
gourd, or possibly, a melon (pepo in Latin, now used as the genus name for 
squashes) similar to a honeydew.  The New World squash we call pumpkin gets 
to Europe about 1000 plus years after the recipes were first collected. 
Modern cooks tend to use squash rather than trying to locate gourds.  If you 
choose to use New World pumpkin a small variety around two pounds is 
probably close to those common in the 16th  Century.

Bear

>I am working on a feast menu for January based mostly on Apicius.  There 
>are several recipes calling for Pumpkin -
>
> Just what sort of pumpkin should I be looking for?  Big Orange 
> Jack-o-lantern just seems wrong.  Isnt' it a new world thing?
>
> Vitha